Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed us that any dependence on the aggressor country - energy, technological, and financial - directly threatens its national security and every citizen. It is also about the danger for Ukrainian businesses that are dependent on russia. At the same time, we have sad statistics. According to the Horoshop platform, the most popular russian software product among Ukrainian companies is Tilda (13,453 sites, according to BuiltWith). So let's dive into services for creating websites. What are alternatives available to Ukrainian businesses?

Why do Ukrainian businesses continue to buy russian software?

1. A long history of relations

Many companies could start using russian products even before 2014 when relations with the russian federation were much better. During this time, Ukrainian entrepreneurs got used to the software and its interface, mastered all the functionality, and taught employees how to use it. And they are in no hurry to change anything.

2. Fear of change

Implementing any new IT solution in the company requires a certain transition period, during which disruptions may occur. In addition, companies fear that the new software will be more expensive.

3. Price

IT companies of the russian federation are now doing everything possible to retain customers by offering them additional discounts, promotions, and other incentives. In addition, they try to hide their russian origin through re-registration in offshore zones and thus avoid sanctions.

4. Lack of complete information about the alternative

Often, entrepreneurs simply need more information about competitors, which will be less expensive than russian software. Sometimes they will be even better in terms of quality, level of service, and technical support.

What alternatives can the market offer Ukrainians? We tell.

Weblium

Weblium is a simple free website builder. Its intuitive interface allows you to easily make a site without writing code. Choose one of the hundreds of ready-made templates, or create your own design from existing blocks. Every website created on Weblium comes with a free domain. At the same time, you can always switch to the Pro tariff to get your own domain name. The service also has a service from Weblium Studio if you want to involve a team of professionals in creating the site.

BenefitsWeblium:

• All websites made on Weblium are optimized for search engines
• Automatic adaptation to all screen sizes
• 24/7 online support
• Video lessons and an extensive knowledge base
• The ability to add widgets that will be triggered and work with analytics systems
• A full accounting of customers and transactions in one place with a personal account for each online store

Subscription prices:

Wix

Wix is a Ukrainian platform for cloud-based development with millions of users worldwide. Wix website builder offers several ways to create a website for free. Wix ADI artificial intelligence can create a professional website in less than 10 minutes. At the same time, with Wix's drag-and-drop editor, you will have complete design freedom to build the site yourself: just drag and change any elements so that they fit perfectly into the style and concept of your site.

BenefitsWix:

• Over 800 fully customizable design templates
• Logo designer
• Reliable, scalable, and free web hosting
• All sites have built-in SEO tools
• If you need specific features, the service offers a Wix Marketplace, where you can find a certified freelancer or agency at an affordable price

Subscription prices:

Webflow

Webflow is an American platform headquartered in San Francisco. Since 2013, the company has won the favor of more than 3.5 million users. The service offers a website builder with over 100 templates, a content management system, and e-commerce and marketing tools. Webflow also provides a REST-based API that you can use to update, add, and remove elements from your CMS.

BenefitsWebflow:

• You can design a site based on any of the free and premium templates or from scratch
• Advanced distributed hosting based on Amazon Cloudfront provides visitors with the maximum speed of loading pages, minimizing the probability of the website crash
• Integrated CMS that can be used to create any type of static or dynamic content
• Powerful design tools for creating websites with HTML, CSS, and Javascript that rival what you can do using code

Subscription prices:

In May 2022, the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced the creation of a special resource #ReplaceRUwithUA, where anyone can find a Ukrainian alternative to russian IT solutions and products. All entrepreneurs have to adopt this because russian companies pay taxes on the budget that finances their terrorist army. Besides, with each new sanction, the West expands the list of individuals and companies serving the needs of the russian military forces. Likely, IT companies will also fall under the restrictions, and then their customers will have to look for an alternative to avoid blocking work processes urgently. So why not do it in advance?